and let this cold night's wind be my witness
by Snowsheba
Summary: Hunters look for the demons who murder the hunters who kill the demons... or is it the other way around? - Your name is Dave Strider, and you might just accidentally find out. [reverse!demonstuck AU. T for swearing, descriptions of gore, major character death.]


**I wrote a thing that is reverse!demonstuck, b****ased off of my-friend-the-frog's AU idea. Check out their tumblr for more information about it, if you're interested.**

**_Note_: unless otherwise stated, TT is timeausTestified, TT2 is tentacleTherapist, TG is turntechGodhead, and TG2 is tipsyGnostalgic.**

* * *

"Yo, Dave."

"Yeah, man." You look up and over your shoulder, easily meeting your brother's eyes in the darkness of your apartment. Though they are hidden behind triangular shields, you've known him for so long that finding them have never been a problem for you. "What up."

"Rose just got wind of some demons in the area," he says without preamble, and his voice, while monotonous, has just the slightest tremor to it that only your finely-tuned ear can possibly detect. Something is wrong, but you play it cool. As always, you reflect with a smirk.

"Again?" You rise to your feet from where you were lounging on the couch, turning off the TV while twisting your neck this way and that, feeling it crack loudly with the motions. "Who's it this time, some newly-turned like the last batch?"

"Nope." There's a tiny smile on his face that vanishes the moment you glance over. "We got ourselves some real sons of bitches to deal with."

You stare at him. He stares back, impassive.

"You're kidding," you say incredulously, and he nods as your tone becomes one of actual surprise, "They came all the way _here_?"

"Apparently they want us out of the picture," Dirk says with a shrug, before adding, "For good."

"Fuck that noise," you say, mentally feeling around for your bladekind. It's in place as primary, thankfully, even after your brief stint with kitchenkind earlier this afternoon (of the two of you, you're the only one who can cook decently). "When they coming at us?"

"Dunno, but the girls are coming over so we can be in the same place. Gotta be ready."

You nod and look around the room. It's neat enough, with a stray puppet here and there, nothing indiscriminating that you need to hide in the closet right away. You're not the cleanest dudes by far, but anything is better than Rose or Roxy Lalonde – those two are like fucking tornados, and walking in Rose's room always ends up with you faceplanting onto her carpet. "Bonanza fiesta extraordinaire?"

"You're the best, bro," Dirk says approvingly, and when he flashsteps over for a fist bump you gladly oblige before moving off to the kitchen, easing the kitchenkind syllabus into the main position in your mind as you pick up the dishes you'd just washed an hour ago.

Your name is Dave Strider, and it's time to make some killer power-up snacks before the massacre.

* * *

"John Egbert, Jane Crocker, Jade Harley, and Jake English." Rose flicks at her laptop's computer screen with her finger – she'd gotten a touchscreen computer, something she goads you about passive-aggressively almost every day – and reads off something on the shared database for demon hunters. "Highly dangerous, notorious for killing all hunters going after them, possibly the most powerful demon family alive today."

"Syllabi?" Dirk asks, leaning forward on his knees. Everyone is seated around the coffee table, you and Rose on the couch while your bro sits in a rickety old chair and Roxy is splayed out on the ground. On the table itself rest your ironically tiny and delicate finger sandwiches that are fucking delicious, purposefully made to be eaten with the pinky held out.

"Hammerkind, Tridentkind – that includes dinner forks, too – and Gunkind for th'other two," Roxy slurs. She's not drunk, but she always acts like it and everyone except you and bro and Rose falls for the act. "Gonna have to be careful not to be hit by a bullet."

"It does say they are dead shots," Rose agrees, tapping on the screen and enlarging a blurry photo of the bunch with a slide of her fingers. Their eyes are bright colors, cerulean blue and cyan and brilliant and forest green, and Rose reads something underneath, eyebrow quirking, and then tells you all, "Jane has been known to peg a man to a wall from twenty feet away as well."

"Well, shit," Dirk says, and there's a genuinely impressed note in his voice. You feel slightly anxious at the thought of it. "Guess we're gonna have to improve our aim, bro."

"Or figure out how to deflect a huge-ass golden fork thrown like a javelin," you grumble, and your brother elbows you in the ribs. You slam your own elbow into his gut, or try to at least, as you complain, "I'm still young, I don't wanna die by being lanced by a trident."

"You're not going to die, dude," Dirk says, and then proceeds to affectionately mess up your coiffure while popping a sandwich into his mouth. You comb your hair back into place with your fingers, shooting him a death glare over your shades, as he turns back to face the girls and room at large and asks, "Do we know where they are?"

"Only that they are in the area," Rose says with a shake of her head.

"We hafta stay together," Roxy decides, and there's a general murmur of assent. "Ev'ryone got their weapons?"

"Yeah," both you and Dirk say at the same time, exchanging a swift glance most would miss, and Rose nods along. Her knitting needles are in fact tucked into the loop around her waist, secured in place by the skulls decorating the ends of them.

Roxy grins and cracks her knuckles, and you know her gun is just waiting to be brought out of her sylladex. "When they come, we'll fuck shit up."

* * *

None of you are surprised when that plan goes horrendously awry, or that everyone is scattered from each other almost immediately after the demons' ambush.

* * *

"Put the sword down, Dave."

His words are smooth and mellifluous, dark and maybe desperate. You're lying flat on your back and one of the demons (John) is straddling you, holding your wrists down with only his hands and grinning a sharp-toothed smile down at you. His eyes are an alarming shade of blue, even through the protective eyewear you're sporting, and you would say they actually glowed.

You're terrified, even though your face shows nothing and your mind is still processing your surroundings normally, and the blade clangs to the ground from lifeless fingers.

"Good boy," he purrs, picking up your own sword for a moment and testing its weight without moving from you. He's insanely strong, and you realized a while ago the futility of struggling to escape, even if one of your hands is free right at this moment.

"If you break that shit that'll be the fifth one this month," you hear your mouth say as he then drops the blade some distance away, your free hand becoming trapped again under his own. You keep on rambling like an idiot. "You don't know how hard it is to get a blade of blessed silver, dude, it's, like, impossible unless you're willing to pay a shit ton of dough. Last time I had to forge the damn thing myself just to be armed properly, and it was actually pretty sick until Bro broke it when we were strifing. Like, what the hell, we weren't even going against demons, and I couldn't even fix it afterwards because he decided it would be a great idea to – "

"Shut up." You only stop talking when you feel the familiar sensation of the cool, metal tip pressed slightly against your throat, and then you resist the urge to laugh. Your own sword is being used against you. Classic. "You don't know what you're dealing with."

How often was it that Dirk had gotten you into this position, you have no idea. A lot. You're a lot less alarmed than you should be, now that you're realizing that this John dude is similar to Bro in that he's more built than you, stronger than you, and currently has you at his mercy. You aren't in any place to do anything now, but your head's cleared up enough so that you can actually think about escape rather than your imminent death; you're going to bide your time right up until you can get the hell out of here and regroup with your brother and your sisters.

His voice startles you out of your reverie. "You're the youngest of the four, right?"

"Sounds about right," you say, tilting your head as if you're thinking about it. John either finds this amusing or doesn't notice, as he ignores the fact that your neck is now slightly further away from the blade, or at least the left side is. Yeah, you could've thought that through better. "You the youngest of your bunch?"

"Yep. But I'm the one asking questions, okay? Jane will get pissed if I tell you about us." The smile the demon currently sports becomes friendly, but you feel no less at ease than before. "Where's your brother?"

"Probably with one of your brothers or sisters, but I don't actually know."

"And your sister?"

"Which one? Kidding," you say lazily as the sword presses a little harder into your throat, "Doesn't matter. You guys got us by surprise, I ain't got no idea where they went."

"Syllabi?"

"Bladekind."

"Not you, that's already obvious." You give him a look and he ignores it with good cheer, requesting instead, "Everyone else."

"You don't know that shit? C'mon, dude, we're the Strilondes, we're the names mama demons drop when they want their kids to eat their fucking vegetables." You shrug languidly, as languidly as one can shrug when flat on the ground, when he growls a warning low in his throat and tell him, "Bladekind for bro, needlekind for the younger sis and gunkind for the older one."

"How good are you all at strifing?"

"Me? Decent."

"Not you, I meant – fuck you, dude, seriously. Everyone else."

You grin and he rolls his eyes. "Bro's good, sister one is good, sister two is good. Not much to say on the matter."

"Are you important to them?" Ping, something goes off in your mind. You'd thought they were just going to kill you, but apparently not.

"You want to take _me_ hostage? Really?"

John shrugs, the picture of an unconcerned captor. "It was the original plan."

"Ha ha, well, fuck me, I guess. We're d'you guys even camp out, in the woods or some shit?"

He gives you a weird look that tells you that you should know better and that you are also an idiot. You stare back, defiant of his scorn. "We got rooms at the hotel at the edge of town, dumbass."

"With eyes like yours? Ears, too," you say, and you make a triangle with your restrained hand by placing your pinky and thumb of your left hand together. Then it hits you and you snort at your own stupidity. "Oh, wait, duh, I'm dealing with demons, control people's mind and shit. Sorry, I can be slow."

"Clearly. Stand up."

"Dude, you are sitting on my stomach. How exactly do you expect me to stand up?"

The proceeding minutes are filled with your commentary wherein you poke fun at his failure to constrain you efficiently, as he attempts to keep his hold on your hands and sword while simultaneously avoiding your kicks as you get to your feet. He eventually does get a zip tie around your wrists and you are eventually standing, and then he nudges you along the darkened streets of D-City, during which you make even more commentary that eventually ends up with you and him arguing about Nic Cage and the (terrible!) quality of the movies the awful actor has starred in.

In fact, by the time you arrive at the hotel, you're both joking with each other like old friends, and he's not even keeping a hand on your shoulder as you walk alongside him willingly to what you are trying not to consider your doom. Once inside, he walks right on past the receptionist, a seedy-looking man whose eyes are dark and distant and looking in opposite directions, and you are led into a spare hotel room with, strangely, no windows but with a TV. He sort of hangs around for a little bit, unsure of what to do, and you decide that maybe he isn't such a bad guy. For a demon, anyway.

The thought does an acrobatic pirouette out the window when the door bursts open and a girl who is cloaked in light green and black darkness with white fangs and wolf ears and a growl in her voice yells, "_What are you doing John_" in a voice that echoes with screams of Hell's fallen angels. This results in John jumping up guiltily and pattering out of the room, sparing you one last glance before the door slams behind him and you are alone with a TV, a phone and five swords still in your sylladex. (Of course you'd lied to him, pretending that a broken sword would be important. You don't break them that often, but you have a ton of spares in case you do in a fight.)

You break the zip tie with a careful execution of releasing a sword from your sylladex – almost getting a finger chopped off for the effort – and, after putting the sword back into your inventory, check the phone in the room to see if you can call Dirk. You can, there is a dial tone, and you decide these demons have no idea how to deal with a hostage as you hang up and instead go for your iPhone, assured of cell service.

**TG**: yeah so uh bro you there

The response is nigh instantaneous.

**TT**: Yeah. Where are you?  
**TG**: i just got kidnapped by the worst kidnappers in history  
**TT**: Considering how this conversation is happening, I'd have to agree. They didn't take your phone?  
**TG**: please also note the tv with cable  
**TG**: i am in room 108 in the black rook hotel at the edge of town  
**TT**: Wow. Not even a blindfold.  
**TG**: sad aint it  
**TT**: Well at least we are now assured they don't know what they're doing.  
**TG**: or its a trap  
**TT**: It explains why the demon fighting me randomly ran off faster than I could catch him.  
**TG**: are rose and roxy all right  
**TT**: Yep, they're with me.  
**TT**: You mind if we wait a bit before finding you? Rose got a cut on her arm that we're treating right now.  
**TG**: no prob  
**TG**: i still got the phone and five swords so i might bust myself out  
**TT**: Make us proud, bro. Or we'll come get you, whichever comes first.  
**TG**: sounds good  
**TG**: im gonna stop texting now bye

You do so and are lounging on the bed, the TV blaring, when the door opens – the picture of boredom, you think to yourself as a girl who is basically like John but with boobs and cyan eyes marches in. Her pointed ears are hidden behind small curls of black hair, and you give her a wave, pointedly bringing her attention to the lack of zip tie.

"Dave Strider?" she says.

"'Sup – " and whoop there is a trident pressing against your throat. Jesus Christ, you're going to die young from heart attacks, not giant forks stabbing you to a wall as you had bemoaned earlier today. "That was really not necessary."

"You didn't flinch," she points out, and her voice is soft and melodious, like John's, but smoother, silkier. You make a mental note to watch for her trickery, if you're here for a long time, that is. Which you won't be. "Do you know where Dirk and Rose and Roxy are?"

"If you didn't kill them, probably at the apartment," you say, returning your attention to the news anchor yelling about the rain in Orlando, Florida. Sharpened gold brushes against your Adam's apple, and you ignore it with hardly any effort. "Thought you'd know that, though."

"Where is the apartment?"

"You plannin' on taking them all at the same time?" Your voice remains calm and monotonous, as does your poker face. Being evasive is your middle name 'cause words are your bitches, and no one except Rose is better at it than you. "That's kind of a dumb plan, just sayin'."

"Is it really?"

"I'm speaking from experience here, lady. It ain't a good idea." You don't say how you got experience, but it has something to do with how Roxy and Dirk often made you and Rose navigate a booby-trapped forest and then fight in confined spaces against them – which was never particularly easy.

"But you are not there. We have a distinct advantage of four to three."

"You're making it sound like I'm actually good at what I do."

She looks puzzled for a few moments, and then she peers at you more intently. "You are the oldest, are you not?"

For a long, long few seconds, you don't say anything, and her eyebrows furrow.

When your shoulders start to shake, her trident jabs against you and draws blood, but by then you're working so hard not to burst out laughing you barely notice. "Youngest," you manage to spit out in between alternatively holding your breath and gasping. "I'm youngest, i.e. the least important. Oh my god, this is spectacular, this is amazing, oh my god."

She looks so angry you think she's going to kill you as you reach up, threading your hands through the trident's tines, to wipe your eyes. You pull them back down quickly when she twitches her hold on the giant fork, but then she abruptly pulls away and stomps off, yelling "_John!_" so loudly you almost feel the walls shake.

She turns to you before the door slams open, and she hisses something you don't understand, and then your world darkens and you feel your head bang onto the bedframe with an explosion of pain before all goes black.

You don't know how long it's been since you were out when you blink back into consciousness – which is a lie, of course you do, you have an electronic clock sitting there all impudent on the bedside table. Two hours and thirty minutes exactly, now it is late afternoon. Your neck aches with a dull, pounding pain, indicating you are bleeding, and you get a little lightheaded as you sit up too fast to check your surroundings.

She, or he, anybody really, hasn't even bothered to zip tie you again, strangely enough. You collect your bearings and feel your neck, unsurprised to find your fingers coming back red with flakes, as you swing your legs over the side of the bed and stand. The world takes a few seconds to right itself, but once it does you cruise on over to the bathroom mirror and bask in the glory of a long, horizontal cut on your neck, most likely due to the girl-John demon dragging the trident away at an angle. Sighing lightly, you paw at one of the little towels and press it against the still-bleeding wound, and then you go to the room's entrance and, to your surprise, find the door open.

No one stops you as you tromp down the stairs, clinging to the railing, as you go to the lobby and jog out the main entrance, and then you set off for your home, not even bothering to spare a glance behind you. They either aren't trying or you're walking into a huge trap, which you think makes sense, because the whole plan before your capture had been meticulous as fuck (maybe?). Or maybe they just didn't think you'd try the door. Or maybe you're being paranoid. Or maybe you have a concussion and yeah, you almost walked into that light pole there.

You wipe your neck once more with the towel before tucking it away in your sylladex, and then you take out a sword and begin to run, tripping once every few minutes, towards home. Better safe than sorry, you tell yourself dizzily, and you get the feeling of being watched the whole way.

* * *

"Welcome back," Dirk deadpans when you knock at the door. He lets you in while eyeing the blood on your neck – it's dried now, probably a brownish-red color if you could see it – and he goes off to get the first-aid kit, as Roxy jumps up and hugs you while Rose's posture on the couch becomes merely straight and not ramrod. You would feel touched that they were worried if they didn't have odd ways to say it.

"They got the wrong person," you tell them as you sit down next to Rose, who, in a rare form of affection, leans against your shoulder while continuing to type into the database. "Apparently they wanted the oldest, not the youngest."

"Me?" Roxy lets out a laugh, hearty and warm. You feel a little better just hearing it. "What could I do to help 'em?"

"Dunno. They wanted to attack once you were out of the picture."

"Attack where?" Dirk asks, appearing randomly next to you on the couch. You almost jump, startled as you are, but for some reason your brain registers that doing so would make Rose pull away, which you don't want to happen for the moment because she's your sister and you do appreciate her warmth.

"Here," you say as Dirk wipes your neck with a wet cloth, gently, with just enough pressure to get the blood off of your skin. It hurts like a bitch nonetheless.

"Right here?" Roxy asks, settling herself on the floor across from you. "This apartment?"

"Yeah." You hiss slightly when something cold touches the cut, followed by a sharp sting as Dirk applies what you think is some sort of disinfectant. "Planning to catch us off-guard without our best fighter."

"Why did they fail to find the correct person?" Rose wants to know, adjusting herself so your bony shoulder isn't digging into her cheek so much. "It seems a rookie mistake. And wouldn't they want Dirk and not Roxy, if we are going in hand-to-hand combat?"

"Hey!" her sister interjects, pink eyes narrowed as she says petulantly, "I have fistkind too!"

"I dee kay, sis," you say, talking right over Roxy to Rose. "The latter part, I mean. They messed up on the whole kidnapping thing because their youngest one fucked up and thought they wanted our youngest one. Which is me."

"But wouldn't Jake – that's the one I was going against – know they wanted Roxy?" Dirk asks, finishing up and wiping his hands on the clean parts of the bloodied towel he'd used. "Seems kind of stupid, given how much preparation they put into the whole ambush deal."

Something rears its head in your stomach, anger burning bright for just a few moments after his accusing words. You don't know why and your face doesn't let anything slip. "Maybe they both forgot."

"Doubtful," Rose says, and then you let out a squeak, much to your embarrassment, when something pokes painfully at the back of your head. "It seems you hit your head quite hard, little brother. Hard enough to bleed."

"The bedframe, when she put me to sleep," you remember, fuzzily at least. "It was – "

Dirk pins you to the couch and, in your surprise, snatches your glasses away from your face as he takes off his own. After a moment of staring deep into your eyes, he goes down to examine your throat, still holding you hostage; while you know better than to make a fuss, it is hard to resist speaking when he inhales sharply at the sight he sees.

"You've been bitten," he says hollowly and releases you, and Rose instantly flings herself away from you as you spasm as if touched by a cattle prod. "Right there. Hidden in the blade cut, but those're fang marks. I wasn't sure before, but after you mentioned that…"

"Does that mean – " Roxy abruptly stops talking and her pink eyes widen. Her mouth opens and closes multiple times before she gets the words out. "Oh, honey. Oh, Davey."

"No," Rose says forcefully, but you know she sees the same thing as you obligingly bend your head away so she can get a better look. When she touches the marks they flare up with sudden pain, and you can't help a guttural growl in the back of your throat until she ceases pressing on them. "It is not possible. That species of demon have been extinct for centuries. Eons."

Dirk shifts and Roxy clears her throat, and then she says tentatively, "Well, uh, Rosey dear. That isn't strictly true."

"_What?_"

"Yeah, demons who can turn humans into other demons is a thing," Dirk says uncomfortably.

Rose's eyes harden to amethyst as she glowers at them, and poison drips from her voice as she hisses, "And you kept this from us _because_?"

"We haven't seen them in a long time, like you said," Dirk explains, and then he points out, "And no one knew one of them was of that species."

"They've always existed, didn't they?" Everyone looks at you and you realize belatedly that yep, that was you who said that. Your mouth keeps on jabbering, too, and you go on, "They continue the lineage by infecting humans they think are best qualified, after which they teach them the ways before leaving them to their own devices."

"How do you know that?" Roxy asks, even as Rose begins to frantically type it all out on a Word document. Something in your mind tells you to shut up, because the more information out on you, the more likely you will be hunted, and – oh, fuck. You'd just pinned the term 'demon' onto yourself, without the proceeding 'hunter'.

"I dunno," you say in response to her, and Dirk shifts from his position next to you, his fingers twitching. You wonder morbidly if those hands will ever find their way around your slim neck, as you ask bluntly, "Are you going to kill me?"

"We should, by law," Dirk says, but both Rose and Roxy raise their voices in objection, even as he adds, voice cracking, "But do you really think we could?"

* * *

"Why."

John shrugs. "Why not? Anyway, you're one of us now."

"They're my family," you say flatly, or try to; anger still finds a way to creep into your voice. "And now they'll kill me."

"That was the plan," John's sister informs you – Jade. She's the dog, the one who'd entered the hotel room in a rush of crackling green and roaring black, and she is incredibly efficient, if in a brutal fashion. And, speaking of brutality, you don't know where Jake and Jane have run off to, nor do the siblings in front of you seem inclined to tell you. "'Course, we weren't expecting your brother to notice John's marks so quickly."

"I don't know what to say to even begin to address those words." You cannot believe how monstrous these creatures are, turning your own family on you in order to take them down during their distraction.

"Well, there isn't anything you can do right now," John says with a shrug, his malicious smile sharpened by the sheer blueness of his eyes, all the more brilliant in the moonlight. You grunt and turn your back on both of them, but then he says offhandedly, "Oh, and you're coming with us for this next part."

Of course you are. You can't even bring to react with little more than forlorn bitterness, which shows on your face now that your shades have been taken away and your eyes are so red and what used to be the whites of your eyes are black and your ears have points and incisors peep through your lips even when your mouth is closed.

"Lead the way," John says, and you do so, without a word, because he Turned you and what he says now is your command and you can't do one. Fucking. Thing. About it. He falls into step next to you, and Jade takes up the other side, her rifle disappearing into her sylladex with a quiet _pop_. The trek is made in silence.

When the three of you emerge from the midnight dark of the forest you'd all been taking shelter in, entering the flat fields of a local park, a gun goes off and you grab John and pull him down, narrowly avoiding a silver bullet, before scuttling off into the cover of trees. Why did you grab him, your mind laments, and then you hiss in disgust as your body automatically moves to stand in front of him while Jade takes out the sniper rifle she'd just put away and darts behind a large oak.

John makes a strangled noise from behind you and you pivot on one heel to see Dirk's sword gleaming silver at his throat, and when your brother looks up and his mouth shapes into an 'o' of surprise, you lunge forward with your own weapon and snap his away, pulling John towards you and away while doing so. Gunfire is exchanged as Jade and Roxy attempt to out-snip each other, and John snarls as Rose intercepts him while you and Dirk circle each other, feet crunching on leaves that are as dead as your soul.

"Why do you protect him?" Dirk asks in a broken voice, his face perfectly pokerfaced but his sword shaking visibly in his grip. You find that yours is perfectly level and still, and even though you're dying inside you are staring him straight on with any hesitation.

"I have to," you say in response, skipping to the side when a stray bullet from somewhere attempts to nail your foot. Dirk is visibly impressed; you'd never been able to do that before, even with your original agility. "Whatever John says I have to do, and whenever he's in danger I have to fucking save him."

"And you can't – ?"

"Can't run 'til he lets me, Bro. I'm sorry." All of your emotion is showing in your eyes, uncovered and red and free, and Dirk has stopped moving and so have you, both of you standing straight and with your swords limp at your side. Your voice cracks just slightly as you tell him with no emotion at all, "You should kill me now, before he tells me I have to kill all of you. I'll be stronger then, and harder to defeat."

"I could and I would never do that, lil' bro," he says. He swallows, then he tells you, voice forcefully steady, "I love you," and then he's gone, flashstepping where John has been joined by Jake and Jane (where the hell did they come from?) and fighting alongside Rose. John had ordered you to be unable to attack his family, but he hasn't said you have to fight your own, and so you sprint as far as you can, leaving behind gunshots and yells and clangs of weapons on weapons, until you're out of shouting distance. You tuck your sword into your sylladex as you hide in a tree, and then, as you rock back and forth and rest your head in your hands, you try not to cry.

You cry anyway, and when you wipe your eyes you see your tears are as scarlet as blood.

When John, Jane, Jade and Jake find you later, bloody and injured and furious with their inability to kill your siblings, John looks at you and, even with hesitation and exhaustion lacing within his words, says, "Next time you see Dirk Strider, Rose Lalonde or Roxy Lalonde, you kill them."

You know your journey has only just begun as your stupid mouth says, "Understood."

* * *

Where you were plenty fast before, you are now as swift as diving hawk, weaving in and out of view with your speed and pissing off everyone in the group – except John, who revels in your prowess.

"He really is the best one of the bunch," he says proudly, as if you are an object and not a person standing right there, and you grit your teeth and tuck the snippet away into a small part of you that grows every day and burns with deep, black hate. That's all you are, and it's all you will become. "He's a good addition to the team."

"Yeah, if he'd actually _fight_ instead of running away all the time," Jade growls, green sparks dancing off of her wild black curls, and you sidestep the punch she throws at you, a blur of movement that lets you take up your customary post behind and to the left of John. "See what I mean?" she complains, and John chuckles as he steps back and throws an arm around your shoulders. You don't react at all, your face revealing nothing.

"He'll get used to it eventually, Jade," Jane says soothingly, cyan eyes glinting with something dangerous as she turns them on you. You stare back, unmoving. "Sure, it would be helpful if he would actively help us get rid of the hunters chasing us, but he's new."

Jake asserts to this by concluding, "I suppose you can't rush a new comrade." Jane huffs at that, and then Jake admits, eyebrows furrowed, "Though I'll admit he is a rather boorish… cur. So far everything concerning this fellow has gone deplorably."

You say nothing. You are ice. You are fire. You are hate, and anger, and misery, you are fear.

"That'll change this time," John says confidently, and cold seeps through your dead veins at the chipper ominousness of his words. "You'll see. I've decided to go the full length this time around."

"About friggin' time," Jake mutters.

"Incoming," Jade says as expected – nearly right on predicted schedule, in fact – and the family around you shifts into defensive stances as they melt into the darkness of the trees. You stay next to John, following his movements, ever his protector and shadow, and take out your weapon when he does.

The first hunter glides silently into view – you know this one, a correspondence to Dirk who goes by the name of Eridan Ampora. He's smooth, he's graceful, he's _very _(vvery) good at what he does, and that gun of his isn't something to scoff at. His partner is one Feferi Peixes, and sometimes the two are joined by the lesser-known Sollux Captor. All are hunters of high esteem, having made over one hundred kills apiece, and taking them on without proper precautions was an essential suicide.

But they weren't expecting the most powerful demon family to date to be around to see them dead. And they weren't counting on a highly-trained young adult that had fought against the best of the best for years and knew what fighting style each hunter followed. In short, they didn't know the four had _you_, and with a mindless killing machine, there was nothing they could do that would scare you off.

You mouth _no, no, no_ to yourself when John turns around and gives you a look with a gleeful gleam in his eyes. _No_, you mouth again, despair making your limbs heavy, even as you know what is coming next (you've been practicing, _he's_ been training you, you're like a fucking dog and there ain't anything you can even fucking _do_). _No, no,_ and then John whispers, "_Kill_."

You move swiftly, coming behind Eridan without a sound and, after flicking your sword once, stabbing him in the gut, a backstab if there ever was one. You can hear him choke as he falls to the ground when you yank your sword of with a sickening sound, Ahab's Crosshairs clattering from his grasp, and you flip him onto his back with your foot and begin to stab him repeatedly in the stomach, slowly covering his body in a single straight, bloody line. You are not in control of your movements, and you do not cease jabbing him until John calls, "Hurry up and do it, dumbass!"

"Dave… Strider?" Eridan croaks, hacking on something before he resumes speaking. "You're…?"

"For what it's worth," you say, your voice husky and dark now due to your Turning, your sword lifting high in the air, your face completely blank and your eyes revealing nothing, "I'm sorry."

"But I – Dirk w-wasn't jokin' – ?"

Your sword slashes down, and the force drives you to your knees, as you cut him neatly in half. There is a loud, terrible, keening screech behind you, and you stand and spin on your heel, vanishing into the undergrowth when John calls you. He gives you an approving glance as you melt back into step behind him, eyes wide and shivering at what you had just done now that it was over, and then whispers loudly, "I told you he could fight."

Jade's voice floats back, and you realize with a flinch that she is only a few feet away. "I believe it now."

Eridan's partner, Feferi, is killed almost pathetically easily, when both Jake and Jane swoop in as she tries to defend Eridan's corpse while taking them out, whereupon Jade shoots her in the head in her distraction. You feel nothing as they cut them both in cold blood afterwards to ensure their deaths, and you say nothing when Jane delegates you to drag Eridan's upper half while Jake takes care of the bottom while the girls and John do whatever with Feferi.

You don't know why Eridan and Feferi had come alone, until Jane mentions to Jake that they had purposefully let it be known that some newly-turned demons were in the area rather than them. You feel sick to your stomach, but you don't put it past these four to do just that, and you hate yourself for contributing and you want to die and you tell John as such. He only laughs, a light and fey sound, and then he hugs you, and then he pulls away and there's a trace of understanding and sadness in his eyes. You chalk it up to passive-aggressive ploys, and even when you see the look on his face more than once that evening, you never give it a second thought.

* * *

Now that the Strilonde family is down to three, losing one of their better fighters, they are having a harder time keeping the demon population in check.

Likewise, as the Egbert-Harley-Crocker-English-what-the-fuck-are-these-people-even-called have essentially gained an undefeatable killing machine that could be turned on and off at will, the hunter population has been in serious decline for several months.

"We're finally gaining ground for a peaceful world," Jake declares one day, and the oxymoronic ring of his words make you want to scream so loud you will bleed from your ears. Soon only your family will be left in the area to defend the ignorant masses, and you pray to the god who has abandoned you that your siblings will kill you before you have to do so to them.

Hunters you know recognize you sometimes before they're struck down by the very blade made to destroy the plague haunting the earth. You wish you could turn it against yourself, against your captors, but orders are orders and John keeps you on a tight leash. You eat when you're told, you sleep when he says, you spar when he wants, and you kill on demand. The only thing he hasn't ever done is make you talk, and so you stay silent most of the time, mute and still and unreadable and deadly.

You make all of them, excusing John, nervous. They skitter around you, knowing full well the power you hold in your blade and the deep hatred that bleeds from your soul and the sheer impassiveness of your face. Your recently-developed demonic powers have also been a topic of morbid interest – the ability to slow, speed up, and stop time itself hasn't been seen in thousands of years, and they fear what you could do if you gained enough mastery to back in time and kill yourself before all of this happened. You can't, of course – you've been forbidden from time-travel. But you dream, and you wish, and you pray.

On a night where you are alone, you climb the tallest tree you can find and sit in a crook between a branch and the trunk, watching the moon and stars through a thin cover of leaves. Winter approaches, and the wind is cool, cold, and dry; you do not feel the chill on your skin, and you are unaware of the cloud your breath makes when you exhale. But you are always on guard (not necessarily an order, though it is one, but more of a habit), and when John pads over to where you are and begins to make his way up to you, you make like the tree and prepare to leave.

"Stay," he says instead, and your body pulls itself back up to your original perch. You hate yourself as he sits across from you on your branch, staring at you with oddly intent blue eyes. "I want to talk to you."

_What else is new_. You say nothing.

"I… I just wanted you to know that I didn't want to do it," he says at last, awkward and quiet and unsure. His voice quakes with uncertainty. You don't care, and instead stare at him in silence, and he goes on, babbling almost, "I mean, I didn't have a choice, because the family comes before feelings, but, for what it's worth. I would put you out of your misery if I could."

You watch him. Nothing flickers in your eyes, nothing shows on your face. He watches you back for a few moments, brow furrowed and blue irises searching for something, anything. Finding none, he sighs, and then he scoots forward and hugs you tightly, briefly, before jumping down from thirty feet and cushioning his fall with wind.

Your heart beats hard, once, a slow dance that speeds up for a fraction of a second before resuming its languid march. You hate him, you hate his family, and most of all you hate yourself. You wish you could rip your heart out of your chest , and it's his fault, _their_ fault, and they are awful and you detest them.

But you guess that John Egbert isn't the worst of them after all.

* * *

"So, they nabbed Dave fucking Strider," he says curtly when he sees you, after expertly avoiding John's tacklehug. He looks you up and down once before nodding, a short demon with dark skin and ruby eyes, apparently satisfied with what he sees and now he's holding out his hand. "Karkat Vantas. Welcome to the Dark Carnival, brother." You flip him the bird and ignore his hand, and one of his eyebrow rises in response.

"Dave, that's rude," John chides, and you flip him off as well with your other hand, right up until John tells you to stop that and be polite, goddammit; then your body mysteriously stuffs your hands into your pockets. Whoop de fucking whoop.

"It's fine, Egbert, you don't need to watch over him," Karkat says, and after fluttering around uncertainly for a few more seconds John takes off, making a beeline for some other person in this fucked-up party. Meanwhile, Karkat turns to you, meets your eyes, and proceeds to solemnly hold up his middle finger in belated response to your own. You give him a nod out of respect, and he nods back. He doesn't take anyone's shit, it seems, and you can appreciate that in a dude, especially considering the company you've been keeping for the past few months.

"Sucks, doesn't it," Karkat says, and you know right then that you like him. "Can't believe you put up with his bullshit, Strider. Especially considering who you are."

"Ain't got much of a choice." Your voice is extremely hoarse from disuse, but you fail to give a fuck and, from the looks of it, so does the other demon. "Can't disobey even if I wanted to. And believe me, Vantas, do I want to."

"I can understand that." Karkat doesn't move from his spot when John and some blonde with seven pupils in one eye start punching each other, playfully. You think playfully, anyway, until welp she wrapped herself around him and bit his neck. You get the sense that you should protect him but ignore the urge, since it wasn't an express order. "I would kill you myself, but then John would kill me and yet another moronic killing cycle would begin."

"How about as a Christmas present," you suggest, and he snorts at that.

"Don't have that kind of money in my wallet, Strider, sorry," he says. "Gonna have to figure out a way to do it yourself."

His words make something click in your mind – find a way to your own death, huh – and then you realize that yeah, that's a thing you could do pretty easily. It was just a few text messages away, actually.

Your cell phone is still in your sylladex, and now is probably most opportune time to use it. You might not even get a chance later that evening. "Hide me," you say to Karkat, and he obligingly steps so he is blocking you from John's perspective, giving it the image that the two of you are talking while in reality you are texting and he is watching you do so.

"Don't want him to go forbidding that?" he guesses, and you give a short nod. He doesn't say anything else and instead looks around silently.

**TG**: demon get together happening right now in arco idaho in the hotel to the south  
**TG**: you wanna wipe out a lot of us now is your chance  
**TT**: Thanks for the tip, bro.  
**TT2**: Fortunately we are around in the area. Please vacate the premises as soon as possible.  
**TG**: how close is around the area  
**TT**: We recently eradicated a demon nest a few miles off.  
**TG**: huh  
**TG2**: youre ok with us doing this rihgt?  
**TG**: yes in fact please kill me i want to die  
**TT2**: No can do, I'm afraid.  
**TT**: Get out of there, kid. You got about fifteen minutes before we throw a bomb in there.  
**TG2**: love you davey 3  
**TG**: i cant live like this any longer

But they don't text you back, and you quickly turn your iPhone off and tuck it into your sylladex. Karkat immediately starts babbling horseshit at you as John approaches, as if you'd been actually holding a conversation with him, and you give him a grateful glance that he accepts with a tilt of his head as John comes closer.

"You weren't too tough on him, Karkat?" He turns to Dave and whispers conspiratorially, "He's a good guy, under that prickly exterior."

"Fuck off, Egbert, your new 'experiment' and I were having an insightful conversation," Karkat fires back with nary a pause, and neither of you miss the hurt that flares briefly in the other demon's blue eyes before a smile is on his face, his voice cold as ice.

"You can continue your no doubt wonderful one-sided discussion later, Karkat. Right now I need to borrow Dave for a bit."

You mutter a quick "Thanks," under your breath and Karkat gives a nod of acknowledgement as you turn and pad after John. You can feel his yellow eyes on you as you walk, straight and tall but with no pride and dead eyes. You are nothing, and you are ice.

Your family will be here soon, and good souls like Karkat will die. You almost feel bad, because he was a good guy, but you can't, because you know how many people demons have killed and it's only right. You were a demon hunter before, after all. This shouldn't be anything new. The warm atmosphere in the room might be friendly and inviting, but there are all murderers. They need to die, and you are just ushering them along so they do so a little bit more quickly.

But then you realize: the only people you've ever seen your troupe of demons kill are the ones after their own lives, that is, killing the hunters hunting them. They've never gone after innocent civilians; in fact, they tended to keep their distance from large towns, only using hotels or supermarkets when it's absolutely necessary. And when they did fight, they made sure they were a notable distance away from any civilization.

Are they are acting in self-defense, not on homicidal urges as you'd been led to believe? As far as you can tell, anyway, from the short time you've been hanging around, that seems to be true.

Plus… well, Karkat doesn't look like a fighter. He's small and compact and seems to have a bark but not much of a bite. You can't see him doing much more than defending himself before fleeing the scene. Looking around, you can see other demons fitting that portfolio as well. One of them is in a wheelchair, even, and though he has the glowing eyes and sharp claws of a demon, his smile is warm and friendly and he exhibits a shy aura around him.

You realize the expression 'walk a mile in another man's shoes' is actually very much applicable here. (Rose would approve.) You also remember Jake's words, "We're finally gaining ground for a peaceful world," and then you understand what he meant.

And in that moment, you make a decision.

"John," you say , your voice cracking, and he practically trips on himself as he spins to face you, jaw wide and his eyes wider because whoa, you hadn't spoken _to_ him since the day the first battle was fought. "My family is on the way here."

It takes a split second for your words to register, and then his eyes narrow. "Your family?"

"Yes."

"Don't lie to me." An order.

"My family is on the way," you say again, and his eyes widen even more, but then you see his instincts take over, and they narrow and he worries his lip for a few moments.

"Stay here." Then he dashes off to find his own family, no doubt, as you stand rooted to the spot. Karkat saunters over after a moment, seeing you standing still in the middle of everything all by yourself, and when he approaches you turn to him.

"Get out while you still can, Vantas," you say without feeling.

He blinks once at you, catlike, and then tilts his head. "Why, what's going on?"

"The Strilondes are coming," you say simply, and his face blanches, his bronze complexion becoming a sickly color. "They won't spare anyone."

"Your family?"

"Yeah."

"Was that the cell phone business? Did they text you?"

"Something like that." Half a lie, half a truth. You cross your fingers and hope he didn't the heartbeat pause preceding your response.

"Is that why John went running off?" Nod. "And he believed you?" Nod. Karkat sighs and rubs his forehead. "Knowing him he probably ordered you not to lie or something."

A ghost of a smile flickers on your face. "He did."

"Well, there you fucking go," Karkat says with finality, briefly throwing his hands up in the air before returning his attention to you. "What's our timeframe?"

"I'd estimate ten minutes."

"Ha ha, fuck." He rubs his forehead and casts a glance around and, upon finding his target, turns back to you. "Nice meeting you, Strider. Take care with those blubbering idiotic assholes, if you're not paying attention you won't survive the week." Then the other demon's gone, going off and taking a raven-haired girl walking around by the arm and leading her away, arguing into her ear. You realize she is blind as she taps a cane in front of her while the two walk out.

John returns with his family in tow, all of them grim-faced, and without a word the five of you walk out of the party where other demons continue to celebrate and chat and laugh. The atmosphere is warm and cheery and friendly and cozy, and you wonder if you've made a mistake. As soon as you exit the building, and an explosion is heard and screaming echoes from within the interior, you realize with sick horror that maybe you have.

"Why did you tell me they were coming?" John asks as your group walks away from the destruction like no big deal, footprints leaving dark splotches in the snow. Snowflakes drift down from the sky and sit on dark eyelashes, and you look at him without a word as he presses, "I thought you'd want them to come so they could, you know. Kill us."

There is a long moment of silence, in which all four of them look at you with an intensity that makes you uncomfortable. Crashes echo behind you and a pure, high trill of a scream rips through the air before being abruptly cut off, and you shiver uncontrollably, hugging yourself and hunching over with shame and fear.

You hardly notice when John's arm slips around your shoulders, but you find your voice when his warmth seeps into your skin.

"I don't know," you say haltingly after a while, and Jake snorts while you tell them, "I – met Karkat, and then I realized, you know, demons aren't really out to kill everyone, they're just – trying to survive. And… I didn't want…" You trail off and frown to yourself. What didn't you want? Or rather, what _did_ you want? You didn't know then, and you don't really know now, either.

"I think the better question is, _how_ did you know they were coming?" Jane asks after a moment, eyes narrowed, and something icy cold drops into your stomach as their stares become as cold as the blowing wind.

* * *

"Hey, Dave?"

You turn to look at him, red glowing eyes meeting luminescent blue ones.

"Thanks. For not letting us die."

You say nothing, just nod, and he takes your hand before closing his eyes.

His breath is warm on your face as you fall asleep.

* * *

Another major demon hunter group comes for your group while you're chilling in Washington. It's where John used to live, apparently, and you are all chilling in a single hotel room when your cell phone buzzes in your sylladex. You frown, because you could have sworn you'd turned it off, but John had given you express permission to use it after the Strilonde incident, so you take it out and peer at the lavender-colored text.

**TT**: Dave, I thought I should warn you that Equius Zahhak and Nepeta Leijon are honing in on your location.  
**TT**: Do be careful.

"Zahhak and Leijon," you say as you tuck your phone away, and all four of them sigh.

"Of course it's that devilfucking Zahhak," Jake grumbles as they all stand up. You've never spoken to Zahhak, but his reputation as the strongest demon hunter around has been asserted by all who had met him, friendly or otherwise. Along with Leijon's lightning-quick attacks, the two were almost as renowned as the Strilondes.

"But since he and Leijon are coming, we need to clear out," Jade says, and as no belongings are strewn about, as no one has been there long enough to unload their neatly-packed sylladexes, they all immediately exit the door, the keys to it being taken along.

John slips his cardkey into the back pocket of your jeans when no one is looking. You ignore how his hand touches your ass as he does so, and how it lingers there for a few moments before it goes back to his side where it belongs. You do, however, look over to him reproachfully afterwards, for which he shrugs sheepishly, grinning.

When you exit the building John whispers, "_Find_," and your nerves go on hyperdrive as you heighten your guard and let your senses take in your surroundings. There are many people around this hour, but you focus in on the ones moving with intent and purpose, not disrupting the time stream _per se_ but definitely bumbling around in it.

You hold up two fingers and John calls out, "Two minutes," and the five of you move away from civilization, as far as you can help it, running quickly and smoothly until the lights are in the distance and the stars twinkle high above you. You use both hands to make a three and a fist, and John whispers, "Thirty seconds," before telling you, "_Defend_." Your sword appears in your hand and you place yourself between where the danger is and where he is in relation to said danger, and you hear rather than see the other demons get their weapons and prepare for combat.

You deflect Leijon's first attack exactly thirty seconds later, when she pounces high up in the air and tries to nail you from above, and proceed to keep her from getting close to John, along with Jane and Jake, as he and Jade and tackle the challenge that is Equius Zahhak. Leijon is focused primarily on you, but she easily keeps her own even as Jake and Jane try to actually kill her.

When she looks you in the face, she falters for the briefest of seconds, not enough to be caught but enough for you to recognize that she knew you.

"Dave Strider?" she says hesitantly as she pulls back and leaps gracefully out of the way of Jane's trident, and you can only stare stupidly as her claws sink into your abdomen and pull out again, trailing blood and leaving behind only pain. She doesn't even look all that guilty, her green eyes flashing once in apology before she turns on Jake and Jane, somehow dodging bullets and large forks as your knees crumple beneath you.

Your body wants to defend, and your muscles tense and struggle to remain upright, but somehow when you fall on your face, you stay down – it's like your mind shut everything off because ow, this pain in unique in all pain. If pain were a competition this would take the cake, easily, and you don't get up even after Leijon and Zahhak are sent running due to their sustained injuries. You try, you really do, but you can't and it's actually kind of pathetic.

John kneels down beside you and flips you over with an apology in his eye when you hiss in at the flash of white, _fuckin' ow_, your body bucking in an attempt to stand, and you say nothing else as you stare up at the night sky and muse briefly whether you would be allowed to die.

"Stop," he whispers, and your body relaxes immediately, no longer trying to protect him from a threat no longer present. He gets up as your hand clenches itself against the wound, and he seems impossibly tall from his viewpoint as he orders, "Don't move."

"Easily done," you croak, storing your sword into your sylladex as you say so. John gives you a weak smile before turning to Jane, who comes next to you and brusquely brushes your hand aside to place her own on the bleeding section of your stomach. It hurts even more when she presses lightly on it, and John has to hold your arms down to keep you from wildly batting her hands away as cyan-colored energy enters your body and heals you from the inside out. Then she pulls away, and you are left to sit around until your muscles and guts and whatnot finish stitching themselves back together again.

After a few minutes John helps you to your feet, your arm looped through his for support, hobbling a few paces behind the rest of his siblings. After a few moments his fingers slip down to intertwine with your own, and somehow, you can't find it in you to complain, as the party tiredly goes up the stairs and into the hotel room and flops onto bed while you make a cozy nest with the extra covers on the floor.

When you go to sleep that night – you don't normally because demons don't have to, apparently (most useful thing ever, hands down), but you do today because you feel like shit – you wake up late at night to John sitting next to you and stroking your hair, humming a haunting refrain. You reach out and find his free hand with your own and close your eyes; when you wake up again early morning and find you are alone and he is in one of the beds, you're half-convinced it was all a dream.

* * *

Jake's dead. Some hunter named Aradia Megido jumped him in the hotel when he'd gone out alone to get ice that morning, and his body was nowhere to be found when you had all gone running around to search for it. Even Jade's doggy senses had been unable to pick up a scent – apparently the two hunters had sprayed something in the air that reminded her of Betty Crocker and she'd gone into conniptions. You still don't know why such a smell would make her have seizures, and while John seems to understand Jane just thinks they are both stupid.

In any case, Jade and Jane are devastated and are inconsolable; John is, too, moping around and completely miserable, and he ends up curling up against you in the bed that you will now be able to sleep on.

You don't say anything to him as he shivers against you and the two girls weep on the other bed. You feel… empty, mostly, but a little sad as well, even though you're still pokerfaced and nothing drips from your eyes. But your arm sweeps around John and pulls him closer after a few moments, and no one notices him sniff before reaching out for your other hand. Likewise, no one says anything when you rest your head on his, wiry hair tickling your cheeks.

At night, when all three are asleep except you, you tuck the covers in around John and sit next to him, watching the moon make a slow arch across the sky, searching for danger. Some of the more ambiguous orders John gave had some leeway, but even though all you'd been told was to 'watch my back', your body still took it upon itself to be even more on guard than usual during the vulnerable times of day or night.

Thus, when a figure jumps onto the balcony, your body surges forward silently, sword in your hand, glass door open in seconds as you shove them against the fence, leaning them towards the faraway ground as your blade threatens to slit their throat. The person raises his hands in surrender, and after a moment, you recognize him from somewhere – Sollux Captor, a demon hunter who also happened to be half-demon, half-human. He was the only Halfling in the world who had decided to side with the hunters, but here he was now with a slip of paper in his hands.

You let him up, against your body's urge that itches to protect John and therefore kill the stranger – but, on the other hand, maybe he will kill you. That would be wonderful and is something you're willing to risk.

"Aradia planted a bomb in here that will go off in ten minuteth," Captor says through pointed teeth, mangling the 's' in 'minutes' but not seeming to care all too much. He hands you the slip of paper, and you look at it; scrawled upon the surface is a code, six numbers in succession, along with a few instructions. "You can dithmantle it with thith – thould be under the girlth' bed – or you can try to run. Aradia'th waiting for you outhide, though, tho that meanth you will have to fight. Your choith."

"Why are you giving this to me?" you ask in a rush, when he prepares to jump back down two stories to the ground. He stops moving when you continue, "Why are you helping a demon?"

Sollux pauses, and then turns back to look at you. "A Halfling never forgeth hith rooth, Thtrider," he says, and there's something of a sad tone in his voice. "One thide thufferth more than the other. And though I might be theen ath a hunter, but I am and alwayth will be a demon." Then he does hop the fence, and you watch as a crackle of blue and red lowers him to the ground before he sets off running.

You wish you were a Halfling as you go back inside, closing the door and ducking down to look under the girls' bed; at least then you would have half a human side to contend with, one that could fight the orders John gives you. Killing people on demand is really not something you want to do as a pastime.

At the same time, you think to yourself, it's kind of nice when you can be useful, when he asks you to defend or find, even if you are being ordered like a dog. You were never much other than an extra fighter when you were with your siblings, and now you are an asset, and almost close to an invaluable one. Then you quickly realize you are thinking bullshit and focus on the task at hand.

Just as Sollux had said, there is a plain gray suitcase hidden in the darkness of the bed's underside. You slither underneath and pull it out, using the code on the paper to open it, and then you cut the wires as directed by Sollux's instruction. The timer then beeps once with finality before shutting down, and you eye the device for a moment before putting it in your sylladex. Maybe you could reactivate it and strap it to yourself later.

You don't question why you don't let this group of demons die, as you go over the room in full once more before settling yourself next to John again, stroking his hair and brushing it behind his ears. He murmurs your name as he turns over, and you find yourself humming his haunting refrain.

* * *

You don't tell them about the bomb, and when John wakes up and finds you running your fingers through his hair, he smiles up at you and sits up.

You aren't surprised when his hand goes behind and around you, and you sit there together with your arms around each other's waists as you watch the night fade and the sun rise.

* * *

Aradia Megido comes hunting when you are all enjoying the free breakfast the hotel offers, walking in like she owns the place before pulling out a gun and a whip and firing at Jade like it's totally okay to get normal people involved in demon/hunter warfare. Screams echo as the few customer flee the scene, and you heard the receptionist shrilly call nine-one-one.

Your sword is out in a flash and you deflect the bullet so it zings off and buries itself in the wall. Everyone is screaming and running except you four, as Jade stands and aims and fires. Aradia ducks behind a wall for cover and you flip a table and everyone gets behind it; from there, you sit in a tuck, crushed against John and Jane, as you find the beat of time, sixty steady thumps that are always the backdrop to your thoughts.

"On your call," you say to no one in particular with your eyes closed and your breathing deep and slow. Your hands are outstretched on the ground, fingers tapping to the beat in your chest – pinky, fourth finger, middle, index, thumb, index, middle, fourth, pinky, again and again – and nothing can interrupt your focus.

There is a single gunshot and Jade hisses, "_Now_," and you stop time, a little bubble around you with them in it, she shoots, you release it and there's a yelp; your heart beats sixty times a minute rather than none at all, and you hear Jane yell and the sickening sound of something crunching into something else. You know Aradia Megido is dead before Jane comes back and pulls John to his feet, who in turns pulls you up. As you turn to where the hunter used to be and are met with nothing but a dark, red stain, you know no one will ever find her body, either.

Jade had pilfered Aradia's keys from her, and then you steal her car – a plain white Prius loaded with weapons and ammo in the trunk. John whoops at the sight of it and you and he take the backseat, and Jade and Jane discuss ways to get blood out of seats as the latter begins to drive. You think you see Sollux watching in the distance, and you think he might be crying even as he turns and begins to walk away.

You text your brother.

**TG**: jane killed aradia megido

He texts back fairly quickly, and you don't try to hide what you're doing from John, who watches the orange and red words spill across the small screen intently.

**TT**: Fuck. Are you serious.  
**TG**: yeah  
**TT**: She's one of the best. How did she even pin her down?  
**TG**: she attacked us while we were eating breakfast at the hotel  
**TG**: jade shot her with a gun and then jane was there like bam  
**TG**: it was bad  
**TT**: But there's no way anyone could shoot faster than Aradia Megido. And that whip of hers is – was deadly.  
**TG**: couldnt tell she died before anything really went down so  
**TT**: Bro.  
**TG**: yeah what  
**TT**: Did you do something that helped them kill her?

You exchange looks with John, and he presses the back of his hand on your cheek, lightly, for a moment. "It's your choice," he whispers, "Truth or lie," and you look back down at the tiny screen, your shoulders hunching with the sudden choice in your hands. But your hesitation will already have your brother suspecting, and so you are honest.

**TG**: yes  
**TT**: That son of a bitch John ordered you to.  
**TG**: well  
**TT**: ... well what?  
**TG**: i mean i  
**TG**: it sort of wasnt an order it was  
**TG**: i  
**TG**: stopped time so jade could

You swallow hard and let your hands fall into your lap, taking your phone with them as it buzzes in your hands. John has already scooted next to you, his side pressing into yours, and he takes the phone from you and his pale, pale piano player fingers dance along the keypad

**TG**: hey mister strider! this is john. :B  
**TT**: Give Dave back his phone, demon.  
**TG**: don't be silly, mr. strider. he gave it to me to talk to you!  
**TG**: here, let me make this less confusing.

turntechGodhead [**TG**] is now ghostyTrickster [**GT**]

**GT**: how's that?  
**TT**: Why did you take Dave from us?  
**GT**: i didn't _take_ him. you're the bunch that walked right into the trap!  
**GT**: if anything, it's your fault you didn't go rescue him! he had to go save himself.  
**TT**: That's because he  
**GT**: blah blah blah, words words words. enough of that.  
**TT**: God fucking hell, asshole.  
**GT**: you want to know why we took dave?  
**TT**: Yes. I do.  
**GT**: there are two reasons.  
**GT**: one, because it gave us some leverage against you, with him being a fighter and your family and all.  
**TT**: Yeah, that was already obvious, and it's something demons like you would do.  
**GT**: tsk, tsk, wait until I'm done before you comment.  
**TT**: Fuck you.  
**GT**: two, because he was never meant to be a demon hunter. he is simply too nice.  
**TT**: Wait, what?  
**GT**: that is all. i'm handing this off to dave now.  
**GT**: it was nice talking to you, mr. strider!  
**GT**: hehe, who am i kidding, no it wasn't. bye!  
**TT**: Wait!

ghostyTrickster [**GT**] is now turntechGodhead [**TG**]

You take your phone back with numb fingers as John snuggles up against you, leaning his cheek into the same bony shoulder that Rose had once upon a time used as a backrest. The memories are so far away now, though it hasn't even been a year, but even when his hand curls around your arm, you think of pale, thin fingers painted a posh purple color.

**TG**: bro  
**TT**: Bro.  
**TG**: i  
**TG**: i dont know what to say but  
**TG**: ive killed so many people bro  
**TG**: so many hunters  
**TG**: some you know and a lot you dont  
**TG**: i killed eridan ampora did you know that  
**TT**: That was you? That's why we haven't heard from him in  
**TT**: months.  
**TT**: What about Sollux Captor?  
**TG**: havent seen him

Lies. How many can you tell in one day?

**TT**: Shit, man, what have you become?  
**TG**: i want to die  
**TT**: No.  
**TG**: promise me something bro  
**TG**: when you or roxy or rose see me again  
**TT**: No, li'l man.  
**TG**: kill me  
**TG**: kill me and forget me  
**TT**: I can't.  
**TG**: please bro  
**TG**: dirk  
**TG**: please dirk  
**TT**: Dave, I can't. I couldn't.  
**TG**: dirk i helped kill aradia megido ive killed eridan ampora i saw feferi peixes die in front of me  
**TG**: nepeta leijon and equius zahhak are next on the list and they arent going to survive unless they dont come after us  
**TG**: i am a killing machine dirk just like you raised me to be  
**TG**: but now im in the wrong hands and you have to stop me because then i will never stop and you will go down under my blade and so will roxy and so will  
**TG**: rose  
**TG**: and every second you wait the stronger i get and  
**TT**: Dave, slow down. We'll figure something out.  
**TG**: no we wont thats what im trying to tell you dirk please get it through your head that you need to kill me  
**TT**: No.  
**TG**: fucking fuck of a fuck dirk  
**TG**: you need to fucking kill me and if you dont then youre going to die  
**TT**: No.

You give up. Your phone is tucked back into your sylladex even as it buzzes with more texts, and John's leaning against your shoulder, his eyes closed as he sighs, and when he finds your hand you weave your long fingers through his. Jane and Jade are silent in the front seats, staring out the window with exhausted faces and frightened eyes, and you sit silently and stay awake for the entire trip, watching the young face of the boy next to you relax in sleep. You pray for death, and let your thoughts wander the macabre hills of your mind.

Exactly seven hours and forty-one monotonous minutes later, Jane pulls into the drive-thru at a McDonalds and orders all sorts of truly nasty shit using the insane amount of money in the glovebox. When the goods are obtained she parks, and while she wakes Jade you get John and then you proceed to stuff your faces.

You have extra food left over, and Jake's absence hangs heavy in the air as the four of you try to cram as much of it as you can into your bodies before tossing the rest away.

Jane drives to a gas station then and persuades another man at the pump to pay for the fuel, and you all load up on goodies in the store while John convinces the cashier to pay for all of it. You feel a little bad for taking advantage of them even though that's really dumb because look at what you've done, this is nothing compared to all of – that. But then the car gets going and Jane turns on the radio and everyone except you takes turns making horrible renditions of the songs you hear.

Life in your family was never like this, and you feel uncomfortable but say nothing and show nothing, blond hair and red and black eyes and pointed ears and teeth and gangly limbs. You stare out the window at the passing countryside and wonder where you are going but don't bother asking, because you know someone whose name starts with 'J' and ends with 'N' will ask.

"Where are we going?" John asks exactly thirteen minutes after that thought, and you smirk to yourself in victory.

"Away," Jane says simply, and then the horrible off-key singing continues. You know it will continue to do so for hours, and though you wince at the thought, you don't raise any objection.

And as you twist your fingers together and begin to pray as hard as you can for a death that you know will not come, you think to yourself how funny it is that becoming a demon turned an atheist into a believer.

* * *

They find you when everyone except you is snoozing in the car, pulled off to the side of a some inconspicuous country road, and you hear them almost a second too late.

You wake everyone up with your best pterodactyl screech, shoving open the car door and dragging John out with you before he's fully awake as Zahhak smashes the back glass, his fist suspended where your head had been seconds before. Jane and Jade stumble out, disoriented, but quickly regain their footing and disappear into the darkness cast by the night. John gets his shit together as well and does the same, and you follow him there, sword out and awaiting your orders.

"Don't move," he says, and you think he's kidding until he surges forward with the wind at his feet, leaving you behind. Then you stare at him, flabbergasted, as he and Jane take on the beasts with Jade shooting them from the distance, because _it's the first time he's ever not used your fighting prowess to his advantage_.

Thus you are forced to watch, horrorstruck, unable to move a fraction of an inch to help, as Jane is downed with a mighty blow of Zahhak's fist. Leijon bounds away in the trees and drags a screaming, shooting-an-empty-gun Jade with her. Then John gets hit by Zahhak's punch, and he goes flying in the air before landing hard somewhere in the undergrowth.

You're forced to sit there in agony, muscles tense as you try to move in vain but can't as Leijon prowls around looking for you, but then there is a breeze by your ear and his voice is whispering, "_Kill_."

You _move_.

They aren't expecting you, and you are moving with such speed that loping Zahhak's head off is pathetically easy, the spinal cord neatly sliced by your razor-sharp blade. Rage boils in your veins and you know your eyes are glowing even more menacingly than usual, a deep scarlet that promises death for all who meet it, and Leijon doesn't have time to mourn; you see her force her attention on you rather than the dead body of her partner, but when she pounces you dodge with a lightning speed you have never had before and will likely never have again and stab her in the back when she lands.

You pull the sword out and she writhes on the ground, mewling pathetically in pain, and then, because you have been ordered to, you stab her in the throat, cleaving the spinal cord and leaving her bloody and broken. The silence that fills the air once you finish the task is heavy and foreboding.

When you look over to the side, at an angle, you see Jade's bright green eyes staring at you, black showing all the way around her irises, her expression one of deep awe, the fright so pronounced you feel a little weak in knees. But of course you just stand there, shock-still with the lack other life to take away, waiting for the order to relax that will probably never come.

Wait, no, why do you want to relax? You have other things to do, like, you don't know. _Help_. Where's John? Why didn't you keep track of him, shithead? He's the one who's important here, you can't afford to have him die on your watch, not when you'd be stuck like this. Would you be unable to move forever if he died? God, you hope not, you would put your hands together to pray but of course you fucking can't. Fuck, where is the kid when you need him –

John's voice comes weakly in your ear, "Help."

Relief makes your limbs heavy as your muscles stop tensing, and you would have folded to the ground like a rag doll had his order not echoed in your body. Instead, you force your legs to move to where you saw him fall, tucking your bloodied sword into your sylladex as you do so. You find him with his arm twisted unnaturally under him in the tall grass (your mind tells you it's a dislocation, nothing more), and he is grimacing with pain when he sees you.

You pick him up and put him over your shoulder, ignoring his indignant growl and the way his hands scrabble to find purchase on your back (his hands are warm, so warm), before going over to his sisters. Jane is lying still near the car, in danger of being run over if you don't move her, and you go to quickly swing her to your other shoulder as well before looking over at a wide-eyed Jade, a scowl in your voice and no expression on your face as you snap, "Let's move, Harley."

She jolts at the mention of her surname, and then she shakily stands and follows you into the woods on the side of the worn, gravel country road. You keep walking until you are some considerable distance away and the foliage is thick enough that a fire couldn't be seen from the road; then you place the two demons you'd carried on the ground, taking a split second to pop John's shoulder back into place (you ignore his strangled yelp of pain, but inside your heart twists in on itself) before doubling back to go check out the car.

It's a disaster, with the back window shattered and a sizeable dent in the trunk, but you think it can still run as you get closer and see the only damage is to the back. One of the doors is jammed, and you have to almost pull it off its hinges to get it open, but once you do you go and rummage around in the back seats. Glass cuts your fingers and arms but you pay them no heed, tucking all of the food you find into your sylladex and searching the glovebox for the remaining money. Once you grab the keys from near the ignition, thinking to yourself that you could probably drive Megido's Prius somewhere and then abandon it, you turn right back around again to the makeshift campsite.

"Harley," you say when you get back, slipping the keys to your pocket. You jerk your head towards where the car is when she looks up. "Go captchalogue all the guns and ammo you can in the trunk." When she stares and doesn't move, you let your lips twitch downwards just the slightest bit and say, "_Now_." You wonder if you should feel guilty when you see how fast she scrambles to do as you said, but decide no, the girl had helped kill a woman in cold blood earlier that morning.

While she is out doing as you'd asked, you search and set rocks in a circle with John spectating quietly, proceeding to then find some sizable sticks and tinder and whatnot and stacking them next to the stones. When you've made a little stack of the smaller stuff and piled some pine needles on it within the circle's center, you will the fire into being – another power of yours, one that most demons could do but none as effectively and quickly as you. It's also a blessing in this case, as there is snow on the ground and precious little dry wood for use, and as you snap your fingers near the bits of tinder and leaves, they burst into crackling flames.

Jade returns when you're feeding more wood into the roaring fire, taking over for you silently and without looking at you, and you nod in thanks as you stand and crack your neck with a twist of your head. John watches this without comment, even as you then kneel next to his sitting form and press your finger against his neck – a steady pulse, if a bit weak, and you tuck some of his hair behind his delightfully pointed ear before you stand up and resign yourself to going back to the road.

When you arrive back at the worn gravel road winding through the dark woods, you take some time to stop and view the mess of bodies you have made; once you have reveled in your own monstrousness, you go over and stoop over to Leijon's cold body, ignoring how her head droops at an sickening angle as you drag her into the opposite side of the road, hiding her corpse in the undergrowth. With more difficulty, Zahhak's soon follows, and you place his body next to hers before going back, bringing his head and settling it as realistically as you can above his neck. They don't look peaceful at all, you muse, as you step back to review your handiwork, and so you go forward, slide their eyelids shut, and reach down and lock their fingers. Somehow it fits, and after whispering a blessing you turn and leave.

You come back to a peaceful scene of fear and warmth intertwined, with Jade tending the fire at Jane's side, and determine they are handling themselves. You root through your sylladex and hand them both a bag of potato chips, and you are about to go look for water when John calls, "Stop. Come over here."

You freeze in midstride (ha ha, stride, Strider, what a lame pun _Roxy used to make that joke_) and turn right around to sit down next to him. Jade's huddling against her older sister, wiping the blood away from her face and cleaning her wounds now that the fire is steady, and she doesn't comment when John turns and buries his face into your chest even though you and your clothes are covered in blood. But then, so is everyone else's, of course, so that's nothing new.

The rest of the night passes with John sleeping soft and warm against you while Jade dozes near Jane, and then you realize just how _young_ the pair is. John and Jade have known nothing but death, destruction, fear, and escape, with the hunters forever onto killing them for no just reason and never ceasing the chase. The only reason these two had gone along and willingly gone into Strilonde territory was on the whim of their older family members, in a bid to end the tag team that could end them all; and even then, the reasoning of aforementioned older family members was to strike before the enemy did, not in murderous intent as Dirk had taught.

The existence these demons led is quiet and desperate, and previous to this you had been destroying others' short lives one by one through sheer ignorance. You feel awful, not just for somehow single-handedly killing both Leijon and Zahhak but also for all those lost young children and adults who have been downed by your blade, and so, since by some miracle you have cell service, you text Dirk. (No longer do you think of him as Bro.)

**TG**: i regret becoming a demon hunter dirk  
**TG**: i really do  
**TG**: i also regret that i never realized that until now  
**TG**: and now i will live forever knowing what a complete asshole i am and was

It's some minutes after one in the morning, but he still texts back.

**TT**: Dude, what are you going on about.  
**TT**: Actually, I don't care what you're going on about if you're done asking me to kill you. That would be fantastic. Suicidal thoughts ain't healthy, bro.  
**TG**: kill me  
**TT**: Fuck.

You leave him alone after that, and he doesn't bother texting more. But a few seconds pass, a color you didn't think you'd ever see again pops up, and you read the words with at first apprehension but then relief.

**TT**: What you keep asking Dirk to do?  
**TT**: I promise I will go through with it, if I have the opportunity.  
**TT**: A sibling knows when the other is in pain.  
**TG**: rose let me love you forever  
**TG**: thank you  
**TT**: Please don't. I would do anything for it to not have to end in this way.

Her words hit you close to your heart, but not quite. You put your phone back into your sylladex and you stroke John's hair and ensure the fire stays brightly lit, keeping watch over these demons, no, these kids, who in reality aren't that much older than you.

* * *

John wakes up in the morning to Jade's keening cry, because Jane is dead.

You feel numb as he scrambles over to her body and holds her cold hand, and you do nothing but watch as the two weep.

* * *

The car still works as you had predicted, though it will be cold going given the lack of back window. You clear up the backseat as best you can, sweeping away plastic-coated glass with your sleeve protecting your palm, and then you seat both of them there as you take the wheel. You feel infinitely old as you start the car, leaving Jane's body behind in a small, unmarked grave, and begin to drive (ooh, Dave, you're breaking the law ha ha no one gives a flying fuck), intent on going anywhere but here.

There is a tussle in the back and, after only a few miles, Jade yells in a sob, "It's your fault everyone's dying, Dave!" and proceeds to try and shoot you. John manages to keep her from doing so, knocking her gun back so it fires out the back window, but you stay extra still just in the happenstance that she manages to actually go through with it. (She doesn't.)

You take your phone out of your sylladex, something they'd told you never to do in the driver's ed class you've never taken, and text Dirk.

**TG**: janes dead by zahhak  
**TG**: i hope youre happy because i have two crying kids in the backseat  
**TG**: dirk why the hell does this even happen  
**TG**: theyre my age maybe a bit more and they just fucking lost an older sib

You wait, one eye on the road, one on the phone's screen. He responds.

**TT**: Demons are monsters, bro.  
**TG**: im beginning to think hunters fall under that umbrella too  
**TT**: Demons deserve what they get.  
**TG**: how can you know  
**TT**: Because  
**TT**: Okay. Look. Do you know how our parents died?  
**TG**: car accident because some lady thought itd be genius to start drinking at ten in the fucking morning  
**TT**: You're wrong.  
**TG**: uh  
**TG**: what  
**TG**: thats what youve always said though  
**TT**: Do you really think some drunk woman driving seventy miles per hour on the wrong side of the road killed them?  
**TG**: nothing has ever led me to believe otherwise  
**TT**: Then I'm going to blow your mind, bro. Not in a good way.  
**TT**: 'Cause that ain't how it went down.  
**TG**: what  
**TT**: Jake and Jane killed them. Both of our mothers, and our shared father.

That is news to you. Big news. Huge news. But it feels distant, somehow. A little strange. There's a niggling in your mind that those people he's talking about aren't really your parents, aren't really related to you, because you're, well, you're what you are. This scares you more than the fact he hid such important information from you, because you think you're beginning to realize what people mean when they say hate is the opposite of love. And then, you realize: you're not even thinking of Dirk as your flesh-and-blood brother anymore, and wonder just how far you've fallen.

You don't let it show on your face, and John and Jade keep quiet in the back of the car. You don't know if they can read you well enough to see how agitated you are.

**TG**: bullshit  
**TT**: I wish it was.  
**TG**: why didnt you tell me  
**TT**: You and Rose were too young to remember, and Roxy and I didn't think it would be a good idea to tell you.  
**TG**: so instead you train us at age three how to hold a weapon yes that makes perfect sense  
**TT**: We did what we had to.  
**TG**: some parents you were  
**TT**: Yes, well  
**TT**: You know what? Fuck that. You're being an ass and a dumb one at that.  
**TT**: We were never supposed to be parents at that age in the first place, Dave.  
**TG**: dont care you were awful  
**TT**: Oh my god, you're blaming us for all of your problems? Real mature there, bro.  
**TG**: seriously what was with all those strifes at o dark thirty  
**TG**: or the irony thing so you could be sincere without looking sincere  
**TG**: so you could like things you wanted to like without being judged  
**TG**: messed up as shit  
**TT**: Look, I'm sorry for all that, but what did you expect? We were sixteen, for Christ's sake.  
**TG**: and dont even get me started on rose oh my god  
**TG**: roxy fucked her up so bad i dont even know where or how but jfc  
**TG**: passive-aggressive warfare? psychoanalysis? like how the fuck how did she even get there  
**TT**: We know we made mistakes. But in case you haven't noticed, it's kind of too late.  
**TG**: yeah but fuck that noise  
**TT**: Arrrgh. What is wrong with you?  
**TG**: a lot of things the first being oh yeah im the fucking spawn of satan  
**TT**: Fuck you because that's not what I meant.  
**TT**: We did our best to raise you with the fact demons were out to get us in mind. Okay? Maybe it wasn't normal or efficient, but it worked.  
**TG**: yeah sure whatever  
**TT**: Sigh.  
**TT**: Look. Do you still think demons don't deserve what they get?  
**TG**: yes  
**TT**: After all I just told you?  
**TG**: yes  
**TT**: Why the fuck would you still think that.  
**TG**: i have my reasons  
**TT**: Your own parents were killed by the same people you're gallivanting around the country with!  
**TG**: correction the people i used to be gallivanting around the country with john and jade werent responsible for that  
**TG**: theyre my age dirk  
**TG**: and i have seen how human they are and how frightened they are of the future just like us  
**TT**: They're monsters, Dave.  
**TT**: They've made you killed humans, for fuck's sake. People who had lives and names and dreams.  
**TG**: i admit to that because its true  
**TG**: but even so i stand by my statement because they have lives and names and dreams too  
**TT**: They deserve nothing more than the kiss of death from a silver blade.  
**TG**: yeah whatever but you know fucking what  
**TG**: i dont believe you

It's the first time you've defied him, and you realize: this is it. You're done. You're pulling a Sollux Captor. You're tossing your lot in with the demons, for better or for worse.

**TG**: everyones got this all wrong  
**TG**: how can demons be the monsters when they act so fucking human?  
**TT**: You've been brainwashed.  
**TG**: no dirk  
**TG**: im finally drinking the toughest tea to swallow  
**TT**: Uh. What.  
**TG**: reality dumbass  
**TT**: Wasn't that some lame joke on a Laffy Taffy wrapper?  
**TG**: stfu not the point  
**TG**: do you know why demons kill demon hunters  
**TT**: Because they're murderous, bloodthirsty beasts?  
**TG**: ha ha no  
**TG**: its because theyre actually fucking human themselves  
**TT**: Dave, what the hell does that even mean?  
**TG**: it means theyre acting in self defense  
**TG**: and you know what else dirk  
**TG**: everything youve ever taught me is wrong  
**TT**: We know where you are.  
**TG**: i dont care because ill run for as long and far as i have to  
**TG**: i am not letting you take them without a fight  
**TT**: We're coming. Don't let your mind be overcome, Dave.  
**TG**: my mind is clear  
**TG**: youll have to kill me before ill let you within a five foot raidus

"Someone toss the iPhone," you say, holding the phone out to the demons in the back – no doubt Dirk's using it as a tracking device. John obliges, never questioning your word as he throws it out the back window, and you pound the pedal to the metal, your fury making your mouth a thin line.

You know this is opposite everything you've learned or thought for the past years of your life, but now you understand, and you won't let anything stop you from saving these two demons who once ruined your life but now taught you what the word 'life' means.

* * *

At the nearest town you steal clothes from retailers, thanks to your time powers, and once you are all decently dressed and have washed up to the extent of being presentable, you go to the nearest hotel and rent a room.

After three showers occur in succession, you end up between John and Jade as they curl up next to you, John taking your hand and Jade sniffling into the covers.

* * *

A bullet shot in the three o'clock moonlight is all it takes, and then a hole through Jade's head causes an unholy amount of blood to seep into the pillow.

You put yourself between John and the window as soon as you force him up, and then instruct him to put the chain on the door before pushing him into the bathroom. "Tell me to _help_," you hiss, and once he does so, you go out onto the balcony and find, big surprise, Roxy climbing down a rope to the floor below.

The old orders of _kill on sight_ roar into your body, and you tense, muscles bunching powerfully, sixty beats a minute ticking in your chest as time becomes your bitch.

"Hi Davey!" she says from below, waving, smiling, and you can't remember who she is exactly beyond the vague word of _sister_. She's lovely, she's pretty, but your memories of her are hazy; you loved her at some point, but no longer can you remember what it felt like, and all that is in you is hate. She reads your expression with ease, a pert frown twisting her lips and a deep sadness in her pink eyes, and aims her gun at you. "Stay back, Dave. We're doing what we have to."

"Fuck. You," you spit, and then you stop time, slide down the rope ladder, go up to her with your sword out and resume time with your blade held in your grasp and with her standing only a few feet away. Her mouth forms an 'o' of surprise as you raise your weapon up.

"I love you and I'm sorry," you say flatly, (_do you really love her _shut up) and then you stab her in the gut, spin the blade once, and pull it out with a sickening squelching sound. She looks down at her stomach, a choking sound escaping those pretty lips, as you easily scale the rope and pull it up so it can't be used anymore (a grappling hook is at the end of it – you'd seen this in the Prius you'd been driving. Fuck). Then you go into the hotel room and find that someone is, surprise surprise, trying to force the door open. From the yells you're thinking it's Dirk, and you wonder where Rose is until you hear her clear, steady voice from the other side calling your name.

"John, out," you say, knocking at the bathroom, and he opens the door and comes to stand next to you. You're only taller by a few inches, and his face is set and grim. You both pointedly ignore Jade's body on the bed. "Can you float us down five stories?"

He nods wordlessly, and you both hurry out to the balcony again. He grabs your hand and squeezes once before you both hop the fence and leap; if he sees the still body of your former sister twitching on the balcony below, he says nothing, and you both land running, cushioned by his gust of air. You hear shouts as Dirk and Rose get onto the balcony, looking up to see them staring down, and you begin slowing time to increase your distance while John pushes at your backs with the wind.

When you reach the cover of trees and have been running for a good slowed-down fifteen minutes, your legs sort of give way and you both fall to the ground and grope in the dark for each other. As soon as your arms are around him he lets out a muffled sob, and you press your lips to his forehead as he finally cries about his lost family because now he's the only one who's left.

"It's my fault, you know," you whisper to him, your mouth close to his ear, and he convulses for a moment but shakes his head violently as you murmur, "If you hadn't turned me, Jade and Jake and Jane would probably still be alive and you wouldn't be in this situation."

"Maybe," he says after a moment, pulling back so he can look at your face. Blue, blue eyes, glowing softly in the dark, spilling red-tinged tears and overflowing with emotion. "But then I wouldn't have met you."

"Glass half-full, huh," you say, and he smiles and presses his forehead against yours, his hands running down your arms before twining with your fingers, lifting your hands with his so they are near both of your faces. You never thought you'd hold this pose with anyone, let alone a demon, but you can't find it in you to care because you are his and you don't hate him anymore. "You're being a little too optimistic, John."

He laughs a broken little laugh, and he whispers, "I have nothing left to go on," and then he kisses you. And, to your slight surprise, you kiss him back, his lips soft against yours, incisors touching, your hand moving to curl in his hair as his going up to cradle your cheek. When you break apart, he laughs and says quietly, brokenly, "Nothing except hope and you."

You tell him softly, gently, "I love you, but I don't know why."

"Run away with me," he says, a response, an order.

You nod once, and you kiss his nose before you stand up and hold his hand when he takes yours. "Always," you whisper, cold winds blowing through your ear, and it's a vow you'll take to the grave.

He smiles a broken little smile, and the two of you begin to walk away, feet crunching in the hardened snow of the quiet forest around you, fingers and hearts intertwined.

* * *

**TG**: hey dirk hey rose  
**TG**: just thought id let you know i got a new phone  
**TG**: finally  
**TG**: also  
**TG**: i warned you dog  
**TG**: shoulda killed me when you had the chance  
**TT**: You killed her.  
**TG**: orders are orders  
**TG**: and you guys werent careful enough  
**TT2**: You could have resisted, Dave. I know you could have.  
**TG**: i really wish that were true  
**TG**: but no thats not possible  
**TG**: i honestly cant remember what your faces look like did you know  
**TG**: never become a demon it does hell to your brain after a year or so  
**TT**: We're going to kill John one day, you know.  
**TG**: oh certainly if you think you can  
**TT2**: We must, at this point. And I have a promise to keep.  
**TG**: youll have no problem keeping that little oath cause when you do come hunting  
**TG**: youll have to take me to even get close to him  
**TT**: You idiot!  
**TG**: im an idiot with pride  
**TG**: catch us if you can


End file.
